f intelligence were established
by Augustus. Suet. Aug. 49. The couriers travelled with amazing speed.
Blair on Roman Slavery, note, p. 261. It is probable that the posts,
from the time of Augustus, were confined to the public service, and
supplied by impressment Nerva, as it appears from a coin of his reign,
made an important change; "he established posts upon all the public
roads of Italy, and made the service chargeable upon his own exchequer.
Hadrian, perceiving the advantage of this improvement, extended it
to all the provinces of the empire." Cardwell on Coins, p. 220.--M.]

[Footnote 90: Pliny, though a favorite and a minister, made an apology
for granting post-horses to his wife on the most urgent business. Epist.
x. 121, 122.]

[Footnote 91: Bergier, Hist. des grands Chemins, l. iv. c. 49.]

[Footnote 92: Plin. Hist. Natur. xix. i. [In Prooem.] * Note: Pliny says
Puteoli, which seems to have been the usual landing place from the East.
See the voyages of St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 13, and of Josephus, Vita, c.
3--M.]

Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive
empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences
to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the
vices, diffused likewise the improvements, of social life. In the more
remote ages of antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was
in the immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West
was inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the protection of
an established government, the productions of happier climates, and the
industry of more civilized nations, were gradually introduced into the
western countries of Europe; and the natives were encouraged, by an open
and profitable commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve
the latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the articles,
either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were successively
imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt: [93] but it will not be
unworthy of the dignity, and much less of the utility, of an historical
work, slightly to touch on a few of the principal heads. 1. Almost
all the flowers, the herbs, and the fruits, that grow in our European
gardens, are of foreign extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed
even by their names: the apple was a native of Italy, and when the
Romans had tasted the r